An all-nighter and rediscovering confidence: How Xavier beat UConn

It was 2:30 a.m. on Thursday when Xavier's men's basketball team arrived home from New Jersey following a 73-71 loss at Seton Hall.

Head coach Travis Steele watched the film from that game on the flight home, and with a visit from Connecticut on the schedule less than 48 hours away on Friday night, Steele headed home, where he was met by assistant coach Danny Peters, who was responsible for the scouting report against UConn.

At around 2:45 a.m., they started.

"We watched film all night," said Steele. "We pulled an all-nighter, we watched all the film, me and Danny did. Thought we came up with a good game plan, something simple, right?"

They thought about what Xavier could do on short notice and decided to make it more about the Musketeers than UConn.

"We made it more about us ... and that was because we only practiced for about 30 minutes on whatever day that was, I think it was Thursday," said Steele. "We just wanted to make sure our guys took a couple things away from that. What do we need to do to win? And I thought Danny did a great job helping us prepare."

Steele said he got to sleep around 6:30 and got back to Xavier around 8:30 a.m.

There may not have been a lot of sleep, but there was confidence. And after a stretch in which Xavier had dropped four of its last six games, that confidence was the difference on Friday night.

Steele said after watching the way his team fought in the second half at Seton Hall, he felt like he had his team back.

More:No. 25 Xavier responds, plays its best game in months to beat No. 24 UConn 74-68

"Last game, the second half, I feel like that carried over into this game," sophomore Colby Jones said following the win over UConn.

The confidence seemed to reverberate throughout the roster on Friday night, and the most noticeable place where it was present was in Nate Johnson.

The fifth-year senior was 0-for-12 from the floor and 0-for-9 from 3-point range over Xavier's last three games coming into Friday.

Knowing one of his best shooters was struggling, Steele showed Johnson a video.

"He showed me the first half of this season," said Johnson, who hit a pair of 3-pointers and finished with 12 points in the win over UConn. "He was being real motivational and I just respected that a lot and he has a lot of trust in me. And I'm glad he does."

More:No. 25 Xavier fights back after another slow start, can't complete comeback at Seton Hall

Steele said: "Positive thoughts lead to positive results. Nate is harder on himself than anyone else. He's a perfectionist. He wants to make every single shot, but he's not gonna make every single shot, right?"

In the background, while Steele was up all night watching film on UConn, he had the winter Olympics on. The skiing competition happened to be on.

"I'm gonna mess up her name, but she's a skier on the US team. She's phenomenal," said Steele. "She got DQ'd the first two races. And in the one, the second race, she sat on the mountain, she didn't get off the course for a while. She delayed the whole event."

Steele said in her next event, she completed it and during her interview after she finished, "She said, 'Man, it just felt good.' She just focused on having fun. She's the best skier in the world, the best. And she started having doubts. She started questioning who she was as a skier. And so it happens to the best.

"Chase Campbell, our strength coach, said it to Nate as well, I said it today to him, I was like, 'Just have fun, take all the pressure off, you just get lost in the game, impact the game in other ways. Defend, rebound, fight, and then all of a sudden, the shots will fall. Just happy for Nate, man. Because again, he's been going through a little bit of a rough patch as everybody does, but I've got all the belief in the world in Nate. He's one of the best shooters I've ever coached."

Johnson wasn't the only one who needed Friday night to happen. They all did. Xavier needed to put a complete game together against a good team and they did that, avoiding a three-game losing streak and putting some of the recent poor performances behind them.

"I think it's big," said Steele. "UConn's as talented as any team we've played all year. ... But our guys, if we do what we're supposed to do, if we focus on getting a great shot for Xavier, taking care of the ball, cleaning up the glass, then we can compete with anybody.

"And you want to always remind your guys that even after the loss against Seton Hall, I felt like we played well enough to win. I really did. And but we lost, so guys will start questioning a little bit probably, just in the back of your mind. So to get a win over a really good team like UConn's obviously great for our confidence moving forward."

Source link

An all-nighter and rediscovering confidence: How Xavier beat UConn

cincylink

Read Next

Dixie Heights loses to Russell in first round

Whistleblower says his ‘entire’ team removed

Kyle Schwarber stays hot, hits two more home runs

How to donate to Damar Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation

Dixie Heights loses to Russell in first round

Whistleblower says his ‘entire’ team removed

Kyle Schwarber stays hot, hits two more home runs

How to donate to Damar Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Read Next

How to donate to Damar Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation

Subscribe to our mailing list to get the new updates!

US orders most embassy staff in Kyiv to leave Ukraine

Protection from COVID-19 booster shot begins to wane within months

Related Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply